Bowl offers chance to impress recruits
HOLLYWOOD — As the hype machine cranked up for the Orange Bowl, Miami coach Mark Richt made a point of stressing that the Hurricanes are in it to win it.
That, no doubt, will be the case when the No. 10 Hurricanes face the No. 6 Wisconsin Badgers on Dec. 30 at Hard Rock Stadium.
But at this moment, Richt and his staff are intently focused on the highest stakes game being played in college football as they attempt to recruit the next generation of would-be stars to take the team farther next year and beyond.
“For our coaches, we’re on the road, really, every minute of the day other than this weekend and next weekend [when] we’ll have [prospects] in town for official visits,” Richt said Wednesday during the initial Orange Bowl media event at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel. “We’re having home visits tonight. That’s what we do this time of year.”
Those efforts are paying dividends. Earlier Wednesday, Miami received a commitment from Jarren Williams, the nation’s sixthranked dual-threat senior quarterback.
“I’m not allowed to talk about [that] at this point,” Richt said, alluding to NCAA recruiting rules, but he added coyly, “I heard something good happened.”
The success the 10-2 Hurricanes had this season certainly isn’t hurting in getting the attention of the players Richt covets. Williams, a 6-foot-2 four-star prospect from Central Gwinnett in Lawrenceville, Ga., visited Miami on the weekend of the Hurricanes’ 41-8 rout of Notre Dame.
Richt pointed out that recruiting efforts began to gain traction after last season, his first at UM, when the ’Canes went 9-4 and finished with five consecutive wins. That helped land a number of early commitments before this season started.
“I knew as a head coach that we had to show enough on the field throughout the season to keep our confidence as a staff and in us as a program. I think we accomplished that,” he said.
“We do have a wonderful class set to come in. We can’t really talk about them yet. But if everybody stays true to their word, we’re going to have a whale of another group of guys to help that roster.”
The back-to-back defeats against Pittsburgh and Clemson showed that the Hurricanes need reinforcements on offense. Running back Mark Walton and tight end Chris Herndon, arguably their two best offensive players, had their seasons cut short by injuries and won’t return. Leading receiver Braxton Berrios is graduating.
An upgrade at quarterback could also be welcomed. Redshirt-junior Malik Rosier, in his first year as starter, showed a winning touch in some comeback efforts but not always an accurate one.
Asked if a certain new quarterback recruit might be entering school as a midyear enrollee, Richt said, “We plan on having a bunch of mid-year enrollees, and there’s a possibility of that.”
Enrolling early would enable Williams to participate in spring practices and potentially in the mix to vie for the starting job.
As to the possibility of an open competition at quarterback, Richt said, “We do that every spring in every season.”
The Hurricanes’ 2018 class, with 21 commitments so far, is ranked in the top five of several recruiting sites: second by Rivals, third by 247 and fourth by ESPN.
As Richt and staff look to add to it, their message is that a team that ranked as high as No. 2 in the College Football Playoff poll this season, can offer opportunities for talented newcomers to play early.
“I think they see the success that we’ve had, they see how close we’ve been,’ Richt said. “But they know we need help. They can see that we don’t have quite the depth that we need to have to sustain any kind of injures or attrition.”